Abstract

The study will analyse how Anglo-American evangelicals' antipathy towardsslavery spread and transformed in the context of the transatlantic evangelicalnetwork. Many researchers have treated antislavery sentiment as a spontaneousreaction, or as one of a number of background moods influencing those who startedthe abolitionist movement. However, this sentiment spread in the Atlantic world asresult of evangelical activities throughout the eighteenth century.The formation of the transatlantic evangelical network is central tounderstanding the spread of antislavery sentiment. Stimulated by the GreatAwakening in the 1730s and the 1740s, Anglo-American evangelicals began totravel between both sides of the Atlantic. Much evidence suggests that a religiousand ideological sense of unity was being forged during this process. Importantly, theevangelical network offered a channel of transatlantic communication allowingAnglo-Americans to debate common issues. Although in itself not antislavery, it hadthe potential to develop antislavery sentiment among its members.Many historians have not traced the development of antislavery ideals in themid-eighteenth century as there seemed no public self-identifying antislaverymovement. However, close examination of 'proslavery' literature reinvents thisperiod into years of transformation of evangelical attitudes to slavery, far from a'dark age' of unquestioned proslavery expression. Below the surface, fledglingantislavery sentiment was spreading in the Atlantic world before the AmericanRevolution.In the tense atmosphere of the American Revolution in the 1770s, antislaverysentiment became transformed into moral conviction. Many members of religiouscommunities on both sides of the Atlantic lost their confidence in the imperialsystem, and were fearful for their moral health. As part of this process, ill-feelingtowards both the inhumanity and religio-moral inconsistencies of slavery becametransformed into a moral ideology. Furthermore, the Revolution stimulatedevangelical abolitionism and participation in wider secular political activities.After the Revolution, the evangelical network seemed to be reinvigorated,responding to new territorial and economic circumstance. However, conflicts withinthe transatlantic evangelical community caused by disestablishment debatesstimulated the process of division, and influenced the developmental process of theantislavery movement in the transatlantic evangelical network. Consequently,evangelicals in each area developed individual abolitionist movements, producingdifferent outcomes. This reflects that the transatlantic evangelical network's missionfor a transatlantic channel for the antislavery cause was finishing.